1.2 The
level of silence as a success factor in organizations
The loudly
touted wisdom in business world today advocates that in order to do good work everybody
should share all kinds of things to their colleagues and networks and in general
everybody should work in a transparent way. It has been proposed that this kind of action
would help the whole organization to grow to its full potential.
We can apprehend
how beneficial it would be if people would actively and openly think, plan and
act together. This sounds both understandable and acceptable, because
organizations are networks of people and in case people decide to choose
silence (often, sometimes, in some special situations) and do not communicate at
the level where they could the result will be that the whole organization may
not work as well as it would be able to do. Certainly, there is always
happening something important or people get new valuable insights and in case
the information does not flow from people to people something valuable is missed.
Sometimes that may an idea which could help to improve operations, sometimes we
could offer something new/more to customer if just knew what someone in our
organizations has seen, sometimes it is something else. Also what is important in
general is the open dialogue where people create new understanding about
everything important which relates to successful operations and development,
that dialogue does not reach its full potential if a lot of silence prevails.
Hence, it
makes sense to propose that a very important success factor for any
organization is that key experts (often this means everybody) in any organization
would share their ideas and observations with others.[1]
Apparently the basic idea would be that the
more the better, ie. ever increasing sharing and transparency would be help the
organization to thrive always better.
So, here we
have one clear recipe for success, so let’s do it. This should be a pretty
straightforward assignment, surely people should be happy to share and operate
in a transparent way. Sharing should be
particularly easy assignment nowadays when there are technical solutions for
open and sharing mode on action. As we know there exist excellent technological
tools which can be used for sharing valuable insights from one to many and many
people do the sharing in their private life as Facebook and other systems
clearly demonstrate.
Yet, in
real life in organizations people often seem to choose silence? Why people choose silence? Why this happens when we all know that voice
would be an asset and silence like an element in liabilities, why we still may choose
silence? Do we have the freedom to
choose either silence or sharing in real organizational life or what we are
facing here? Let us deepen our understanding about silence. It appears to be a
most intriguing element in human life.
...to be continued
[1] But as always, also different
views have been expressed. “I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.” Publilius Syrus Roman Writer
(~100 BC)
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